1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a method and apparatus for time of flight (TOF) sensor 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional map generation.
2. Description of the Related Art
TOF (Time Of Flight) based sensor captures TOF raw data. TOF raw data array is converted to depth map and then to 3-dimensional point cloud, which are ultimately used for 3-dimensional map array. As 2-dimensional image map array, TOF amplitude image array and gray scale array are obtained.
These operations inevitably require expensive operations, such as, recursive computation, iterative computation, floating point multiplication, floating point division and the like. These features prevent obtaining the real-time processing of TOF based vision systems and make it difficult to perform parallel processing.
Floating point division is a commonly and frequently used operation for 3-dimensional vision applications. However, this is a considerably expensive operation and makes it difficult to support a real-time processing of DSP, vision, and image applications.
Furthermore, arctan function is a heavily computed expensive operation on general purpose processing units, which also prevents real-time processing of DSP, vision, and Image applications. In addition, vector processing is difficult due to intrinsic operational characteristics of arctan and its dependency on angle regions. Ultimately, arctan operation is one of bottleneck for 3-dimensional vision applications.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and/or apparatus for improving the generation of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional maps in TOF sensors and cameras.